2010-2011 Exhibitions

Mexican Folk Art: Selections from the Arreguin-Lytle Collection

May 29 – August 1, 2010

Study Gallery

Mexican folk art is deeply rooted in the social, economic, and cultural life of Mexico and has been an important source of inspiration for artist Alfredo Arreguin. Organized by director John Olbrantz, the exhibition features masks, carved animals, ceramics, and textiles that offer a fascinating glimpse into the art and culture of rural Mexico.

Alfredo Arreguin: El Esplendor de la Selva

June 5 – August 15, 2010

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

Alfredo Arreguin is a Seattle painter and printmaker who draws on the lush flora and fauna of Mexico and the Pacific Northwest, and the patterns found in Mexican folk art, as sources of inspiration for his work. Organized by director John Olbrantz, the exhibition features 27 works from public and private collections throughout the region.

Critical Messages: Contemporary Northwest Artists on the Environment

August 28 – November 7, 2010

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

This exhibition explores 26 contemporary artists' responses to a host of environmental issues confronting the Pacific Northwest.Their works focus on issues such as managing growth and consumption as well as preserving wilderness, wetlands and biodiversity. The exhibition features a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, video and installation. Oregon artists Rick Bartow, Michael Brophy, Jana Demartini, Robert Dozono, Roll Hardy, Adam Sorensen and James B. Thompson are among those whose works are included in the exhibition.

Sandow Birk: Dante’s Inferno

October 16 – December 23, 2010

Study Gallery and Print Study Center

Sandow Birk is a Los Angeles, California painter and printmaker who, since the early 2000s, has re-imagined Dante’s Divine Comedy. Organized by director John Olbrantz, the exhibition features 36 prints and 20 drawings from Dante’s Inferno that the artist sets in contemporary Los Angeles, with Dante as a Southern Californian led by a mullet-sporting Virgil.

Francis Celentano: Form and Color

November 20, 2010 – January 16, 2011

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

Francis Celentano is a Seattle painter and professor emeritus from the University of Washington who explores issues of color, shape, form, and structure in abstract, geometric works. Organized by director John Olbrantz, the exhibition includes 34 works from public and private collections in Oregon and Washington.﻿

Henk Pander: Works on Paper

January 8 – March 13, 2011

Study Gallery

In conjunction with a major retrospective exhibition of painter Henk Pander's work in the Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery, faculty curator and professor emeritus Roger Hull has organized a small exhibition of Pander watercolors, drawings, sketchbooks, and posters that demonstrate the artist's skill and facility in other media.

Henk Pander: Memory and Modern Life

January 29 – March 27, 2011

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

Henk Pander has lived in Oregon for 45 years but to this day describes himself as a “reluctant immigrant” from his native Holland. Over the decades, he has maintained a cultural double vision: he documents and interprets American technology, materialism, topography, and disaster in paintings and drawings that recall the grand tradition of Dutch art. Organized by faculty curator and professor emeritus Roger Hull, the exhibition will include works from the past 50 years and will be accompanied by a major monograph on the artist.

Glory of Kings: Ethiopian Christian Art from Oregon Collections

March 19 – June 12, 2011

Study Gallery & Print Study Center

Co-curated by professor and faculty curator Ann Nicgorski and University of Oregon professor emeritus A. Dean McKenzie, the exhibition features a range of Ethiopian icons, illuminated manuscripts, magic scrolls, icon and cross pendants, and monumental handheld and processional crosses that serve as visual expressions of the Ethiopian Christian faith and ritual practice.

Alexandra Opie: Mirrored Landscape

April 9 – May 15, 2011

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Atrium Gallery

Alexandra Opie is a mixed media artist and assistant professor of art at Willamette University, where she teaches photography and electronic media. The exhibition will feature 12 large-scale photographs created by the artist over the past few years.

Senior Art Majors Exhibition

April 9 – May 15, 2011

Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery

Each spring, the Hallie Ford Museum of Art features the work of senior art majors at Willamette. The exhibition, which represents the culmination of their four years at Willamette, will open April 9 and continue through May 15, 2011, in the Melvin Henderson-Rubio Gallery.

Characterized by a wide variety of styles and approaches, the exhibition features work in a variety of media, including painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, ceramics and mixed media. In addition, many of the senior art majors will discuss their work as part of free Tuesday gallery talks during the months of April and May.